Bang & Whimper
by neverfallawayy
Summary: A compare and contrast of Tate and Violet's relationship to one of T.S. Eliot's most famous poems & a continuation of their story six years post-finale.
1. Chapter 1

_**- August, 2001 - **_

"Which one, Violet?"

The little girl, clad in pajamas and a mock serious expression, ambled over to her mother's bookshelf and perused the stacks, pausing every now and then at a Steinbeck or a Hemingway much to her mother's amusement. Finally, the girl selected her book and slid under the covers preparing for her bed-time story.

"Hmm, Eliot. Are you sure honey? Even I find his prose a little dense."

"I'm sure Mommy. Read now."

Vivien Harmon opened to the content's page and carefully read over the available poems and cantos. _Maybe it's best she chose a poetry book, _Vivien thought. _The majority of classical poetry could put me to sleep as well._

"Which poem should I read? Here," She handed the book to her daughter and prayed Violet wouldn't choose to have them both suffer through one of the longer ones.

"The Hollow Men, Mommy." Violet said, almost immediately after Vivien handed her the book. She placed it back on Vivien's lap and cuddled up to her side.

"The Hollow Men it is." Vivien sighed. _It could be worse I guess._

Ben Harmon stood in the doorway of his bedroom, watching the two girls he loved most in the world. Violet and Vivien. Vi and Viv. He thanked God Violet had inherited his love for poetry. Vivien couldn't stand it. Ben was actually surprised to see her reading it, even as a bed-time story. _The things a mother does for his child, I guess, _he thought.

"_Between the desire_

_And the spasm_

_Between the potency_

_And the existence_

_Between the essence_

_And the descent_

_Falls the Shadow_

_This is the way the world ends_

_This is the way the world ends_

_This is the way the world ends_

_Not with a bang but with a whimper"_

"Mommy?" Violet's eyes were lingering open and her body was heavy with sleep. "What does that mean?"

Vivien looked up, seeing Ben in the doorway and mouthed for him to come nearer. She need his explanation as well and she knew he'd word it better.

Ben silently padded to the bed where he eased his body next to his seven-year-old's. "Well, I think he means that the majority of people in the world think of dying as a big adventure." Violet had turned now, her body angled between the two of her parents, more awake now. "But really, when it happens, things aren't as exciting or noble. Circumstances don't always work out for people and sometimes you don't get to be a big hero when you die."

Violet was silent, her eyes heavily lidded and her expression somber. After several quiet seconds she said "I'm ready for sleep now."

Ben and Vivien, used to the abruptness of their daughter, stood. Vivien put away the book and Ben scooped his little girl into his arms and headed for her room.

"That was a little deep for ya' kid. You're not scared, are you?" Ben said.

"No, Daddy. Death is nothing to be afraid of."

Momentarily stunned, Ben stopped in front of her bed and looked down at her. "What makes you say that?"

"Well, it's the start of a new life, right? You die and go someplace else, meet new people, get a new family. I'd miss you and Mommy but…I don't know if I'd remember you." _Violet was being perfectly serious_, Ben thought, _as perfectly serious as an exhausted seven-year-old could get. _"Anyways, I'm tired. Put me down, Daddy."

"Well, death is not something you have to worry about, baby. You're going to be perfectly fine. You're going to live a long, happy life, meet a boy you'll eventually marry and then start your own family. Violet, you're only seven, don't think about it."

"It's okay Daddy. It really is. I'm not scared."

_**- 16 Years Later - **_

Violet Harmon, perpetually stuck in her seventeen-year-old body, paced back and forth in her room. Crates of books stolen throughout the six years of Halloweens littered the floor and music blasted from speakers loud enough to bother her parents, who no longer cared what she did anyway. Sunlight fought it's way through her heavy, dark drapes and cast a gloomy, reddish tinge to the air. Her chalkboard was still there, surprisingly. Whenever a new family came in she just hid it in the basement till they moved out, within the month and sometimes, if her parents were particularly gruesome, within the week. But a new family hadn't been here in a good seven, eight months so the chalkboard was up, covered with song lyrics and poetic phrases long erased leaving an almost permanent gray chalk covering. Only one stanza of poetry stood out amongst the dirt and dust.

_This is the way the world ends_

_This is the way the world ends_

_This is the way the world ends_

_Not with a bang but with a whimper_

Her pacing finished, Violet stopped and glanced around the room, staring at things that would only be special to her eyes. A Nirvana CD with a scratch down the side, perfectly unusable. A palm-sized bird carved into a corner of the room that she'd only discovered once the room was completely unfurnished, hidden discreetly where two walls met each other. And a book. The most heavily-read book Violet owned, it's pages bent and creased, it's binding almost frayed to pieces. It lay almost reverently in the center of the room, open to the very poem Violet had written on the chalkboard.

It was the same book that Vivien had read to Violet when she was younger. The one book that she requested on an almost weekly basis from that day forward. Violet did not like poetry, to her father's disappointment. She preferred heavy Russian writers and stories about tragedy and unhappiness. But T.S. Eliot had taught her something at seven years old that Violet still remembered. Death is not a big adventure. Death is not something you can prepare yourself for, something to plan out your reaction to. Death is harsh and cruel and unfeeling and Violet never forgot her own reaction to it. She never forgot because now she lived in constant contradiction of it. Death, for her, her parents and all the other people trapped in this house, is something to be extremely afraid of. Because now they are exactly that. _Trapped. _

She closed her eyes and saw the poem's last line in her head and how it related to her life.

_Not with a bang but with a whimper_

Tate Langdon's life ended with a bang. Violet Harmon's ended with a whimper.


	2. Chapter 2

**Note; Text in italics will be referring to things that happened in the past but within the timeline of s1. Moments between Tate and Violet that we never saw.**

_- Between the desire and the spasm - _

Moira O'Hara was doing what she was good at. She was making tea and deciding how best to clean up the bloodstains in the basement left by Nora's little monster. She'd complain, but, really, what else would she do with her day? She enjoyed having something to do, a reason to exist in this house. She enjoyed having a better preoccupation than Nora who still occasionally cried in spare rooms and ran her hands over seemingly unfamiliar territories, and Hayden who flirted with and tortured Travis whenever he wasn't living it up to the fullest by playing tea-party with the burn girls in the basement. Moira had a niche in this house far more enjoyable that the majority of the ghosts. Ever since the Harmons had died, they'd adopted Moira as their nanny and thus brought her up from her shameful reputation as home wrecking housekeeper to something like Murder House royalty. Though still technically the "new kids on the block" in terms of length of time in the house, the Harmons were treated with a kind of respect, an awe owed to them because of their happiness. None of the ghosts in this house were happy. Troy and Bryan had each other, true, but they were trapped as immature pre-teens for the rest of…well, we don't know. Their nature might still be as stupid and thoughtless as a cruel duo of tormentors but they'd been around for longer than others and that trapped them in more ways that just the house afforded. The ghost groupies that invaded the house just shortly after the Harmons moved in adapted well, becoming Hayden's posse and band of loyal followers. Moira imagined that they might be the only ones practically enjoying their ghost hood. However, they've only just begun. The golden years of immortality (well…you know what she means) only lasted nine, maybe ten years. Boredom will fester in your soul and what could have been will be the haunting that plagues their waking daydreams. Ben and Vivien at least, Moira thought, had more than the others. Not only did they have each other, fractured though their marriage had been before they moved, they thrived with their new baby and much-adored though slightly neglected daughter.

Yes, Violet. Moira glanced to the window to see the solitary teenager smoking on the porch, her sneakers slapping rhythmically against the brick in time with whatever song was playing on her little…what ever that thing was. Hidden though she was the majority of the time, Violet's emptiness was tangible to anyone she spent any time around, short as that may be. Her eyes held more loneliness that Moira had thought was possible surrounded as she was by her family and the small cluster of friends she'd made since her death.

Wiping down the counter for the countless time, Moira reflected that some messes can not be cleaned up by Lysol and paper towels.

"_Let's play a game," Tate said, relaxing his seat on the porch balcony with Violet, tucking his shoes under each other and tracing the smoke her cigarette made above her head with his eyes._

"_What kind of game?" The girl next to him said curiously, blinking her eyes and seeing him through the haze._

_Ignoring her for a minute, Tate Langdon looked out onto the street. Turning back at her expectant eyes and muffled "any day now", he replied "This road's surprisingly busy, isn't it?"_

"_Uhh, yeah, I guess."_

"_Ok. Pick a person, any person."_

_Violet glanced away and looked out onto the street as well and searched for her person. A peroxide blonde with a plastic surgery agenda and an ostentatious cellphone barely spared the house a glance as she rustled in her enormous purse for her keys. No, Violet thought. A man with roughly a fourth of the hair he'd be born with and barely a neck to call his own checked out the woman's butt and straightened his jeans suggestively. Definitely not. And then, probably walking half the dogs in the neighborhood, a college-aged boy struggled to keep up as he passed by on the opposite sidewalk. His shirt screamed hand-me-down and his dark hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat owed to him by the Great Dane practically lugging him forward each step._

"_Him," Violet said, pointing an index finger lazily and hoping Tate wouldn't go postal on this random stranger like he had on that crack whore just a week ago. _

_Cocking his head sideways, his hair falling slightly over an eye, Tate squinted and said "Straight, dyslexic, can't stand his mother's pot pie, loves to watch sappy Lifetime movies on rainy days and is currently dating a girl who cannot paint her own toenails to save her life."_

"_You totally made all that up, jackass." Violet said._

"_Shit, yeah. How the hell would I know all that stuff?" Tate scoffed and smiled his strangely adorable evil grin._

"_How is this a game? Is it my turn make up things I don't know about this guy?" Violet asked, intrigued but also confused._

"_Sure, if you want. Let's hear it."_

_Though the boy was long gone, as was most likely his sanity because of the dogs, Violet started her analysis. "Forever alone, he sleeps with dryer sheets stuck in his pillowcase that remind him of the one girl who gave him a pity lay, he stinges with money but will drop down a load for a costume to go to a Trekkie convention. He cuts his own leg hair and keeps it in a Ziploc bag but has a meticulously clean bathroom that he scrubs down twice a week. How was that?""Perfectly inaccurate as far as we know, but amusing nonetheless….he does look like he takes care of his bathroom well, though, doesn't he?" Tate added as an afterthought, causing Violet to let out an uncustomary smile. He in turn smiled and turned away to play with his hands and duck his head as though the reddish brick underneath the both of them was the most fascinating specimen he'd ever seen._

"_That was a fun game." Violet said, thinking that the sun felt very good on her face and that it brought out more than three shades of blonde in his hair._

"_Stupid though. I play it sometimes when I've got nothing else to do." His head was still bent, his shoulder bones making light impressions into his thin sweater._

"_You never have anything to do, do you?" Violet asked, perfectly blunt and perfectly serious._

"_I do now." Tate said, finally looking up._

Mormon, dresses like Pamela Anderson in spare time, has stolen a Pez container before, won't eat eggs without hot sauce, will pull over at any time to go check out a yard sale on the side of a road.

Thinking that her predictions were fairly plausible, Violet Harmon watched the portly redhead with badly fitting jeans check her cell for the third time in five minutes then finally walk down the street and away from Violet's viewpoint. Quietly turning toward the road she unfolded her legs and let them dangle over the sides of the porch, watching her long skirt fold and unfold in the humid Californian wind. The 'for sale' sign in front of the gate was older than her little brother would ever be at seven months old. The realtor had stopped coming by to make sure the place was presentable, make sure the yard was trimmed, all that bullshit as far as Violet was concerned. This house was a prison, might as well look like one.

Looking over her shoulder at the smashed kitchen window Violet saw Moira and her mother chatting softly with the baby draped across Vivien's shoulder. The baby. That's all anyone ever called it. Ben and Vivien still hadn't named it. At this point, Violet thought they might as well not. That child would never turn at the sound of his own name, never write it down on his homework or a wedding license or even have it written on a death certificate. They might as well all be nameless.

Hearing their voices drift down the hallway, Violet turned back and closed her eyes.

Less than three feet away and feeling absolutely nothing, a gaunt, exhausted-looking seventeen year old boy sat cross-legged and rather uncomfortable staring at the now empty kitchen. It was better to feel nothing anyway. Flashbacks hurt like bruises when pressed and memories screamed endless loops of distorted faces and feelings pulsing together in a strobe-light arena of pain. It was better to feel nothing. To feel nothing and everything and nothing all at the same time.

The annoying sound of sneakers hitting pavement and out of tune singing turned his eyes toward the visible gate in front of the house. A teenage boy with a fake punk attitude and a leather jacket in ninety-two degree weather lay nonchalantly draped across the bars. Loves Madonna but poses as a Metallica fan, irons his jeans, scrapbooks, gay, Tate thought mechanically. Obviously.

He was as alone as he could ever be. With the only person he'd even care to spend time with banishing him from her sight, Tate Langdon was utterly and completely isolated. From his own doing as well as Ben and Vivien. Shortly after Violet…well, shortly after, Ben and Vivien refused to see him as well so he became invisible to them as well. Moira, by default, ignored him in every way. Travis, who had developed a protective, almost older brother stance with Violet decided to make Tate every casting agent who'd ever denied and rejected his good looks and oh-so-sexy-romance-cover physique and sent him cold and slightly wounded looks every time they encountered each other. Larry's girls had always been scared of him regardless. Beau alone gave Tate the proverbial shoulder to cry on and because of that, Tate avoided him completely.

He spent his days looking forward to the next Halloween in which a ghost's invisibility is null wherever they go. For six years he'd looked at every possible place he thought he'd meet Violet. Thrift stores, pharmacies, used book stores, everywhere, but she eluded him at every opportunity. The next Halloween was approximately three months and sixteen days away but Tate had no idea where to begin his twelve hour search. Aside from that, Tate had a bigger problem. So involved was he in his search for Violet, he had never thought of what he'd say. Plead, argue, beg, rage, scream, sob, silence. He had no idea.

"Well isn't this just the most pathetic thing I've ever seen."

Tate started, alarmed by the first voice he'd heard in over five months. But his hope evaporated quickly when he saw Hayden's malicious smile and cruel eyes. She was, however, not looking at him but…next to him.

"The depressed eunuch and the razor chick within five feet of each other, who would've thou-" Her mouth stopped moving, stationary in dawning realization. Tate was beginning to understand. "Ohhh, how tragic. You can't see him and he can't see you and yet, here you both are. Well, this looks like something straight out of a Nicholas Sparks book, the two of you sitting here, on the porch looking as innocent and clean as a young couple in love should look. I'm touched, really I am."

Tate moved quickly and flung his arms out ridiculously hoping he might be able to catch Violet up, touch her, feel her, even move through her.

"Touch luck psycho, she's gone." Hayden smiled and wiggled her fingers as she too disappeared.


	3. Chapter 3

**Major apologies for such a late and rather sucktastic update. Life rudely interrupted. **

"_Touch luck psycho, she's gone." Hayden smiled and wiggled her fingers as she too disappeared._

Hayden had been watching them. And this hadn't been the first time they'd been around each other obliviously. They paced within inches of each other in their shared bedroom, lay unmoving on the grass in front of the gazebo covering her own decomposed corpse and sometimes just sat with their backs to the walls, their sides touching so delicately that sometimes Hayden wondered if they really did see each other. But each oh-so-quiet sigh and each slow, methodic blink of their eyelids over their tired eyes told her that, no, they were not aware of being within inches of the cause of their own agony.

She was the only who noticed, or, at least, the only one who cared. She alone knew that Violet had not altogether given up her sick addiction and that her razors got more attention than her own lost and lonely love. She knew that Tate whispered her name over and over while he slept, curled into a fetal position and shaking convulsively as if every syllable chilled him to the bone. She heard the 'tsks' and saw the fake sympathetic looks that Chad and Patrick gave Violet whenever she chose to appear in their presence and she watched the way Moira moved around the girl, always cautious and tentative but never uttering anything about how things had been when she was alive, a housekeeper to _his _family.

Yes, she noticed it all. But she didn't care about them or their tragic love or any of that bullshit. Hayden had a plan. And it didn't involve the two of them reuniting with birds singing in the air and a Disney soundtrack. It involved a game. A diverting game that Hayden was deliciously close to winning. It involved a vendetta. A vendetta against the one person she placed the full blame of her death on. If she couldn't harm Ben Harmon anymore that she already had, she had to go for his heart. And Hayden knew that, despite his infidelity, Ben worshipped his family - his wife, daughter and eternal newborn. The baby and Vivien were out of the question. Twisted though she had become, Hayden still adored babies and would never think of hurting Ben's. Sometimes she thought she felt a stirring in her own dormant womb, the spark of her own unborn baby physically moving to break free. But then again, Hayden was going insane.

No. Hayden knew that the most intense pain she could inflict on Ben was through Violet Harmon. And Hayden knew that the most intense pain you could inflict on Violet Harmon was through Tate Langdon.

Hayden had a plan. A plan that involved a vindictive game and a heartless vendetta. She had set her sights on Tate almost immediately after being killed. She'd seen him before, crouched in the bushes near the patio that warm afternoon when she told Ben that she was pregnant. She'd admired his golden curls and lean physique and thought, hell, I'm only twenty-four, might as well have fun while I can. Six years later though, Hayden had no desire to win the heart of that boy, oh no. She wanted what she could use him for, a deceptive weapon he didn't know he possessed. It was a never-ending circle for Hayden. Have Tate, hurt Violet, destroy Ben. Have Tate, hurt Violet, destroy Ben. Have Tate, hurt Violet, destroy Ben. It played constantly in her head, the words blurring into streams tinged with bitterness and insanity. Have, hurt, destroy. Tate, Violet, Ben.

Humming an old Beatles song, Hayden strolled through the rooms of the house, her hate leaving an almost tangible fog in her wake.

But Hayden was never one to plan ahead. She was never one to think of the minuscule details, the what-ifs of a situation. She counted too much on what she _thought _she knew about Violet Harmon. But Hayden didn't know it all. She didn't know anything.

Violet had learned quite a lot since becoming a ghost. Between the archaic knowledge she possessed from Tate and the useless details she acquired from Chad, Violet knew that there must be more than just _being a ghost. _So she did was she was best at. She talked and gained information from others without their even knowing. And Violet was now the most knowledgeable ghost in the Murder House. She'd learned exactly how to disappear from some and appear to others in the same space; how to watch the ghosts who didn't want to be seen, the ones who were set on permanent invisibility, whether they knew it or not.

That day on the porch was not the first time she'd finagled her way through the complexity of appearing to one and not another. But this was the first time she allowed herself to actually _see _her companion.

Violet had vanished from Hayden, yes. But she was still propped on the porch. With Tate. He, however, was unaware of her presence and Violet liked it that way. This was a momentous occasion. Never before had Violet not fled his company. The slightest hint of his footsteps, his quiet breathing, broken laugh left her scrambling to the nearest escape. But now she felt like a little bird, slowly and cautiously approaching something they no longer feared. She was skittish and her breathing came faster, reminding her of the times they'd be around each other those first, simple and deliciously mindless months. The months before all of Tate's bullshit came back to haunt him and ruin her.

He looked the same. Violet didn't expect otherwise - she too was still as youthful as she'd been at the time of her death. His hair fell in careless waves over his face, his eyes closed against his cheeks, the eyelashes forming mirrored images of themselves across his almost translucent skin. The wind blew strands across his prominent cheekbones and Violet felt her heart break all over again.

_Open your eyes_

Tate whipped his eyes open, his gaze darting from left to right, looking comical if this had been a happy story. He was so sure that he'd…_no, it wasn't you worthless, soulless monster. You didn't hear anything you stupid piece of shit. _

Hayden was right, Tate thought mechanically, she just was. She was a bitch, but she was a perceptive bitch. What could have…thoughts and questions drifted quickly through his mind, forming half-sane theories and hypotheticals that only he would think of. It was useless. She was gone and she wanted nothing more to do with him. His fists clenched and his shoulders hunched impossibly further into himself. He was origami, folding and bending until he no longer recognized even himself.

The source of Tate Langdon's never-ending misery sat less than two feet away, tears silently rolling down her cheeks. Six years cold turkey and Violet Harmon had broken. This was the beginning of something she'd wished she'd never started. But, like that rolling stone in her favorite Indiana Jones movie, it had started and there was nothing she could do to stop it.


End file.
